A Very Touching Book...for Little People and for Big People by Tom Novak

I think growing up in 3:00Natick, I was in a rather large family, I guess. I think I definitely gravitate now towards more city living and what that provides in terms of culture and sports and things like that.

NOVAK: Growing up in a suburb of Boston was nice, to be close to a major city. Q: What was it like growing up in Natick? I was there through high school, left to go to college in New England, and didn't leave New England in terms of like a life move until taking a job with CDC. I was born in Natick, Massachusetts, in 1974. Could you tell me when and where you were born? But we'll back it up for a moment, if it's okay. Q: I really look forward to getting into that. A lot of the work that I do in West Africa, Mali is one of our countries, and so I had knowledge of the partners and the people, especially the person that was leading the response on behalf of the federal government there. In terms of a short sentence as to why me as opposed to many of the other talented people at CDC, is I had knowledge of Mali, and I think that was a theme throughout our team and why we were successful there. My title was epidemiology team lead for the CDC Ebola Mali response team. If you were to give someone a short, two to 1:00three-sentence description of what your part was in CDC's Ebola response in West Africa, what would you say? Primarily, our international work is related to responding to epidemics of meningitis globally, which the highest risk countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, which led me to Mali.

I'm an epidemiologist with the Division of Bacterial Diseases, here in Atlanta, and our international meningitis work. For the record, could you please state for me your full name and your current position with CDC? Novak, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Novak as part of the CDC Ebola Response Oral History Project. Today's date is February 23rd, 2017, and we're in the audio recording studio at CDC's Roybal Campus in Atlanta, Georgia.

A Very Touching Book...for Little People and for Big People by Tom Novak